a. Field of the Invention
The instant invention relates to the field of computers, and in particular to hardware support, security and remote monitoring of computers, and a system and method employing same.
b. Background of the Invention
As is well known, computers commonly crash, and often reach a state of hardware disrepair prior to such a crash, unbeknownst to a user of such a computer. The lifecycle of computers is becoming increasingly shorter, particularly in that modern computers with ultra-high speed processing, and the component parts thereof, do have an increasingly finite life span. Most computer problems, however, do not result from stress on the computing hardware, but rather stem from careless handling, neglect, unhealthy environments, careless manufacturing and old age. Such ailments make it easy to understand why the average computer system rarely survives more than ten years without some sort of catastrophic failure.
Ordinarily, this brief lifespan would not be of concern, since the average useful life of a computer system; the time in which it is still relevant and capable of running the software of the day, is far shorter than a typical computer lifespan, such as five years, for example. However, careless handling or neglect can cause a catastrophic failure even during the useful life of a computer. Likewise, viruses or the like may be obtained, without knowledge by the offending user, which may ultimately disable a computer. Chances are that anyone who has ever owned more than one computer has experienced some sort of unexpected computing catastrophe from a system that should still have had years of useful life left.
In particular, for example, hard drives of computer very often fail. Hard drives are known to fail as a result of vibration, heat, static charge, and power surges, for example. For instance, a hard drive's prime element is a drive head(s) that is configured to read the information contained on the drive. The drive heads float a very small distance, such as a micron, for example, above the surface of the drive platter that holds, or is embedded with, the data. This small separation dictates that subjecting the drive globally to vibrations can cause the drive head to offset, crashing the drive and rendering the drive inoperable.
Further, heat problems can cause delicate electronics, such as the aforementioned drive head, of hard drives to fail. Heat may be generated for a multitude of reasons, such as fans clogging or otherwise not operating properly or efficiently, stress on the motherboard causing the computer to run but at increased temperatures, or hard drives laboring and therefore producing more heat than normal to perform functions, for example. Additionally, static electricity and electrical disturbances, such as power surges, may severely limit the lifetime of a hard drive. While such conditions are possible to minimize they are nearly impossible to eliminate.
Therefore, a need exists monitor a computer at least during its typical useful lifetime, including its hard drive and other components, so that the component or computer may be replaced before failure due to hardware or a security breach occurs and before a catastrophic loss of data.